MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte responded Monday to her Senate impeachment trial summons hours before the deadline, demanding the case against her be dropped.
The House of Representatives impeached Duterte in early February on charges of graft, corruption and an alleged assassination plot against one-time ally and former running mate President Ferdinand Marcos.
A guilty verdict in the Senate would result in her removal from office and permanent disqualification from politics.
A copy of Duterte’s reply to the summons delivered by messenger to House prosecutors on Monday afternoon called the complaint against her an abuse of the impeachment process.
“There are no statements of ultimate facts in the (impeachment complaint). Stripped of its ‘factual’ and legal conclusions, it is nothing more than a scrap of paper,“ the response read.
It goes on to deny the allegations made against her as “false” and state that the Senate’s decision to remand the case to the House earlier this month removed her responsibility to answer them.
Duterte is currently on a trip to Australia where she is meeting with Filipino supporters.
Her summons was issued on June 10 after an hours-long Senate session that saw lawmakers convene as an impeachment court only to send the case back to the House, a decision one lawmaker called a “functional dismissal”.
Barely 24 hours later, the House complied with the senior body’s order to “certify” the constitutionality of the impeachment.
Duterte allies in the Senate had argued that earlier complaints heard in the House without a vote counted as multiple impeachment hearings within a single year, a violation of the country’s 1987 constitution.
House prosecutors now have five days to respond to the vice president’s answers.
Her trial is not expected to start until the new Senate convenes on July 28.
